Use of Low Temperature Cold Atmospheric Plasma in the Treatment of Melanoma Cells

Abstract

Recently, cold atmospheric-pressure (CAP) plasma have become a novel and popular tools in biomedical applications. It has been proved that CAP plasma treatment will induce cancer cells death. With different CAP plasma treatment parameters, cells will have different fate including proliferation, apoptosis and cell membrane damage. It has been reported that a low energy plasma will cause cell proliferation while a longer exposures lead to cell death. So, the aim for this study is to induce melanoma cells apoptosis in a short time by CAP plasma-jet. We first evaluate the optimal working condition of CAP plasma-jet including treatment time, voltage, flow-rate and plasma-gas composition. Then we use CAP plasma-jet treat on melanoma cells with different medium volume, cell number and treating times to find a suitable condition for the cell culture. Results demonstrate that with medium 0.6 ml and seeding 104 cells have highest cell viability while treat 180 s and 360 s are significantly decreased. In the migration assay, cells migration ability is both decreased when treat with plasma for 180 s and 360 s. We also do the Hoechst 33258 stain, after treating with CAP plasma melanoma cells are detach from the bottom and have DNA condensation. Finally, we examine ROS expression present/ absent ROS inhibitor sodium pyruvate (SP). Data shows that after CAP plasma treatment ROS expression is induced while cell viability is reduced. But cell viability is recovered by pretreat with ROS inhibitor SP. In conclusion, both cell viability and cell migration ability are inhibited by CAP plasma-jet via ROS mediation in melanoma cells.